This is the sixth annual installment of my "Guys I Got Wrong" column (for past versions, see the links below). I'll look at players who have become much better big leaguers than I ever forecasted them to be and try to explain where I made mistakes in evaluating them.
As with previous editions, I've included some players I didn't discuss much as prospects or young major leaguers -- errors of omission that are errors nonetheless. This allows me to talk about some guys who never received much praise or publicity anywhere, not just from me.
The 2017 season has brought a lot of spikes in performance that might just as easily be one-year wonders: Chris Taylor (age 27), Whit Merrifield (28), and Travis Shaw (27, and protected from LHP much of the year) all performed way above projections or scouting reports would have indicated, although in Shaw's case there's enough positive there that I'll mention him below.
In general, I prefer to see more than one season above expectations before including a player in this column, but this year, any such players with two or more good years under their belts had appeared in a previous version, so these players are mostly 2017 breakouts as well.
Past "Guys I Got Wrong" columns: In 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012
Luis Severino, SP
New York Yankees
2017 WAR: 5.4
I saw Severino multiple times as a prospect and loved his arm but hated his arm action, forecasting that it would eventually lead him to a relief role because pitchers who throw like he does frequently break down or struggle to command their fastballs.
Severino's emergence has come in large part because of his vastly improved slider this year -- a pitch that was below-average when he was in A-ball and was just average his first two years in the majors (-0.6 runs per Fangraphs), but has been among the five most effective sliders among major-league starters this season. Severino had 399 swings and misses through 29 starts this year, and 181 of them (45 percent) came on the slider, with nearly 90 percent of those slider swings and misses coming on pitches out of the zone, per MLB Statcast.
I didn't like Severino's delivery when I saw him in the minors -- he never used his lower half at all, which puts severe stress on the pitcher's arm, especially his shoulder -- and saw only the below-average slider when I saw him with low-A Charleston and Double-A Trenton. I don't think the delivery is much better now, although Severino has at least compensated by getting a lot stronger in his upper half, but he's working with three legitimately plus pitches right now, and as long as he stays healthy he's going to pitch like an elite starter.
Corey Knebel, RP
Milwaukee Brewers
2017 WAR: 3.9
Knebel occasionally posted gaudy strikeout rates in tiny samples in the minors, but nothing in his performance or stuff indicated that he'd ever punch out 42 percent of batters faced (15.3 per 9 innings) as he did this year. He came into this season with a career rate under 30 percent.
The biggest change in Knebel has been in his fastball. I don't think I've ever projected a reliever already well into his 20s to add velocity, but Knebel has done just that, picking up more than 2 mph from his age-22 to age-25 seasons. He also has gone from below-average command to well above-average command over the course of that same time span.
Travis Shaw, 3B
Milwaukee Brewers
2017 WAR: 4.3
I've seen Shaw quite a bit over the years and thought he'd be a backup, not a regular -- saying exactly those words when Milwaukee acquired him in December -- for two primary reasons:
1. I didn't think Shaw would have enough OBP skills even against right-handed pitching to do what he has done for Milwaukee this year. Between Triple-A and the majors over the past two full seasons, Shaw had a .314 OBP overall, and just .328 vs right-handers.
2. I graded his defense at third as below-average, which it hasn't been this year by dRS (+6 runs) and has barely been so by UZR (-1.4 runs).
Shaw still isn't good against southpaws, and the Brewers have protected him with some light platooning, but he's also doing more than enough against right-handers in both the OBP and power departments that calling him a "backup" turned out to be inaccurate.
This may very well be Shaw's peak -- it's incongruent with his offensive and defensive history enough that I think that's a real possibility -- but even holding 80 percent of this value would put him comfortably above where I graded him. And the best news for Brewers fans is that they still have the second piece from the Shaw-Tyler Thornburg trade, Mauricio Dubon, who is likely to make his major-league debut early in 2018.
Chad Green, RP
New York Yankees
2017 WAR: 2.6
An error of omission: I don't believe I've ever written about Green anywhere on the site, not even when Detroit traded him with Luis Cessa to the Yankees for Justin Wilson in December of 2015.
Green, an 11th-round pick out of the University of Louisville in 2013, the same year the Tigers took Knebel in the sandwich round. (Knebel merited a mention in my draft recap that June, but Green didn't make it.) Green was an unremarkable minor-league starter, even making nine big-league starts over 2016 and early 2017, but after a conversion to the bullpen his fastball became one of the most effective in the majors.
He throws hard, but he's not among the hardest throwers in the majors. His secret is above-average velocity combined with above-average spin rate on the fastball, producing ridiculous swing-and-miss rates on the pitch.
Tommy Pham, LF
St. Louis Cardinals
2017 WAR: 5.4
Here's all I've ever written on the subject of Mr. Pham, listing him among "other bats of note" in the Cardinals' system before 2014, calling him: "a very toolsy, aggressive 25-year-old who's reached AAA but can't stay healthy for a full season" and referring to him as a "major-league asset" when the team traded Jon Jay away in December of 2015.
The Cardinals' 16th-round pick out of a Las Vegas high school in 2006, Pham has had a bizarre path to his All-Star-caliber 2017 season. He struggled to make contact in the low minors, and missed more than half of his teams' games in 2011-2013, playing in 127 games total across those three seasons (just 12 in 2012) around injuries.
This year marks the first time in 12 pro seasons that Pham has approached 500 plate appearances (481) in total, breaking his previous high of 438 from 2008. Perhaps it's unfair to say I was "wrong" about him, but I certainly never said anything to indicate he even had the potential for a 5-WAR season, which is what he has given the Cards this year. He has combined power, speed and patience along with good health and improved contact lenses to help treat his keratoconus, an eye disorder that results in progressive thinning of the cornea.
Pham is already 29 and probably has a short window as a regular now, but he has more than justified the faith Cardinals' personnel have had in his ability for years, even as he struggled to stay on the field.